External Affairs

Susan Hall: Can you give a breakdown of all spending in external affairs over the past 5 years, broken down by year?

The Mayor: This question was first posed relating to the 5-year period 2013/14 to 2017/18 in December 2018 (MQ 5479), and the Mayor’s answer is published here.
This answer demonstrates how the overall spend figures are broken down across the various teams that comprise the External Affairs directorate. The External Affairs Directorate includes, Marketing, Creative, the Press Office, Events, Commercial Partnerships, Business Support, Public Liaison unit and Digital Transformation.
Many of these teams provide support to the Assembly and Secretariat, including high profile joint events such as PQT, Remembrance Day and Armed Forces Day, Holocaust Memorial Day, 7/7 and the Christmas Carol Service. The wider team also supports the Assembly’s digital presence via a dedicated area on London.gov.uk, which showcases the Assembly as a whole and explains its role so that Londoners can understand how the Mayor is held to account. Furthermore, the creative team often provides photography for key Assembly events free of charge.
Below is the net expenditure for External Affairs from 2014-2019 excluding staffing costs rounded to the nearest £1,000, and any income that also relates to staff costs. This includes all activities that support the GLA, the London Assembly, the GLA family and other functional bodies.
Public Liaison Unit
In 2015-16, the net expenditure of the public liaison team was £128,000. In 2016/17, the community relations team, which had been part of the PLU budget line, moved outside of External Affairs and therefore was no longer accounted for as part of this budget. In 2016-17, the net expenditure of the PLU team was £54,000. In 2017-18, the net expenditure of the PLU team was £57,000. In 2018-19, GLA committed to a new technology solution to support the work of the PLU, including a hosting solution for the EU Londoners eligibility checker. In 2018-19, the net expenditure was £245,000. In 2019-20 the net expenditure of PLU was £143,000.
Press Office
In 2015-16, the net expenditure of the Press Office, was £64,000. In 2016-17, the net expenditure of the Press Office, was £68,000. In 2017-18, the net expenditure of the Press Office, was £75,000. In 2018-19, the net expenditure of the Press Office, was £73,000. In 2019-20, the net expenditure of the Press Office, was £31,000.
Business Support and Office Supplies
In 2015-16, the net expenditure of the Business Support and Office Supplies, was £1000. In 2016-17, the net expenditure of the Business Support and Office Supplies was £3,000. In 2017-18, the net expenditure of the Business Support and Office Supplies was £3,000. In 2018-19, the net expenditure of the Business Support and Office Supplies, was £3,000. In 2019-20, the net expenditure of the Business Support and Office Supplies, was £1,000.
Events for London
In 2015-16, the net expenditure of the Events, was £ 3,483,000. In 2016-17, the net expenditure of the Events, was £5,558,000. The increase in expenditure in 2016-17 is due to two additional events specific to that year that were approved by Mayor Johnson’s administration: £275,000 spend (MD 2033) on the Team GB and Paralympics GB homecoming celebration event on Trafalgar Square. £1.8m spend (MD 1601) on The British House at the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic games. In 2017-18, the net expenditure of the Events, was £3,784,000. In 2018-19, the net expenditure of the Events, was £4,598,000. In 2018-19, additional funding was allocated to the Events for London programme to prioritise safety at key events such as New Year’s Eve and Notting Hill Carnival, supporting both counter terrorism measures and crowd safety. In 2019-20, the net expenditure of the Events, was £4,485,000.
Centralised Marketing Budget (CMB)
In 2017/18 marketing budgets across the GLA were centralised into one budget managed by External Affairs (£1m annually since introduction), the spend of which was previously spread across multiple GLA policy teams and was not captured within the External Affairs budget. This was reallocation, not growth, in marketing spend to drive better value for money through joint planning, which has been effective. Centralising marketing spend is common place in the boroughs and in central Government, where it has been in place for the last 8 years through their Government Communications Service, the budget for which was £300 million in 2018.
In 2017-18, the net expenditure of the Centralised Marketing Budget, was £730,000. In 2017-18, the remaining budget was carried over to the next financial year due to an unavoidable delay in processing planned expenditure, In 2018-19, the net expenditure of the Centralised Marketing Budget, was £1,176,000, this includes the carried-over budget from 2017-18. In 2019-20, the net expenditure of the Centralised Marketing Budget, was £969,000.
External Relations programmes
This budget funds tools and services that are used across External Affairs and the wider GLA to support our communications, such as our CRM tool, our subscription to a photo library tool and social media insights tools.
In 2015-16, the net expenditure of the External Relations programmes, was £91,000. In 2016-17, the net expenditure of the External Relations programmes, was £ 70,000. In 2017-18, the net expenditure of the External Relations programmes, was £136,000. In 2018-19, the net expenditure of the External Relations programmes, was £91,000. In 2019 –20, the net expenditure of the External Relations programmes, was £148,000.
Please note that the digital development budget is mostly held within Technology Group budget.
Commercial partnerships
The Commercial partnerships team bring in income raised though sponsorship or event stalls as well as value in kind sponsorships to the GLA. Income raised is accounted for within the event/project budget.
In 2015-16, the net expenditure of the Commercial, was £2,000. In 2016-17 the net expenditure of the Commercial, was -£13,000. In 2017-18 the net expenditure of the Commercial, was £1000. In 2018-19 the net expenditure of the Commercial, was -£11,000. In 2019-20 the net expenditure of the Commercial, was £4,000.